Travel day... and the Nysa ruins, and a look at our new accommodations!

Wednesday was a travel day as we drove from Denizli to Güzelçamlı. I had looked at the route ahead of time, and it didn't look very exciting. Mostly four lane highway that went through some larger towns. It was not a limited access highway, so when it went through towns you had traffic and traffic lights to deal with. 

So I had found a stopping point around half way where there was supposed to be an interesting looking 2,000 year old Roman bridge. I didn't do any further research, and just dropped a pin on my mapping program.

We said goodbye to our host and thanked him for a great stay. There was too much to see around Denizli and one week was not long enough!

We were on the road just after 10:00am. It probably took us half an hour to get totally out of the city, and then we were in farmland.

Farmland.

Scenery along the way.

Bringing the cabbage to market.

More farmland.

Lots of the various fruits and vegetables being grown in this area.

Not really the most exciting drive, but we always enjoy just being on the road. 

At the town of Sultanhisar, we turned north to do the short detour up to see that Roman bridge. 

As I said earlier, I hadn't done any research at the time... I just figured this would be a good place to stop and stretch our legs and have a bite to eat.

It turns out that the Nysa bridge is only a small part of the Ancient city of Nysa... another fantastic ruins site. Now I'm sure that some of you are getting tired of looking at this stuff, but we're not! Especially a site like this one... quite a bit different than anything we've seen yet.

We paid the 10 lira ($1.67 CAD, $1.30 USD) per person entry fee. Other than the workers, we were the only tourists there at the time.

Nysa was occupied from about 200 BC until about 1400 AD.

It was built around a fast flowing river gorge, and at one point it had three bridges crossing the gorge, and a big stadium built on top of the gorge itself. Very little of the original state is left today due to earthquakes and flooding hundreds of years ago. But it's enough to be able to paint a picture in your mind of what it was like in its heyday.

This section of the largest bridge is still in pretty good shape.

But the part where it used to cross the gorge is gone.

You can barely make out the rows of seating at the stadium.

The archeological work here is fairly recent. Other than some early work in 1905-1906, most of what you see now has taken place since 1995, and is ongoing today. The vast majority of the site is in its natural state, but you really can't see too much because most of the city is buried beneath an olive tree plantation!

The main street was buried under 3 to 8 feet of dirt!

You can get a better idea from this photo.

The street continues where they have stopped digging.

Imagine how much they haven't found yet.

Main street looking towards the gorge.

There has not been much birdlife worth taking photos of.

The baths are still in their natural state of ruins.

This area has not been excavated.

Here is what lays beneath the dirt.

So much to explore. And as I said, we were the only ones there other than some workers doing some rebuilding at the theater. We eventually saw a total of five other visitors during the entire two hours we spent there.

This photo gives another good show of how much is buried beneath the olive trees.

The council hall.

Another street.

Looking the opposite way.

What is buried 8 feet below ground level!

Notice the clay piping!

The modern day main road that goes through the property actually goes over the 2,000 year old bridge. The part that the water flows through looks like a tunnel, but a tunnel is dug through something, so this is technically a bridge.

We drove over this 2,000year old bridge yesterday.

We also walked through the tunnel.

The theater is undergoing some major restoration.

Parts of the bridge.

You can remains of the stadium seating here.

The library 

What happened to the rest of the wall?

An overview of the main part of the site.

What a great stop that turned out to be!

But we still had some driving to do, and it was already after 1:30pm.

Back on the road, we took a detour on some back roads to avoid the city of Aydin. There is also a toll bypass around the city, but we would rather avoid the four lane highways whenever possible.

Most of this area was cotton farming.

Picking cotton by hand.

We did see some machines at work in the bigger fields, but they seemed to leave a lot behind.

Not that we know anything about cotton farming!

We stopped at a big 5M Migros big box grocery store outside the town of Söke. But we've found that although these stores are bigger, they don't really have much better selection of products than the smaller stores do.

We arrived at our Airbnb rental in Güzelçamlı just before 5:00pm... a bit of a long travel day for us, and we were ready for a cold beverage on the patio! Our hosts seem very nice, and they live in the building above us, having turned the first floor into a private apartment.

Yesterday's drive, 210 kms (130 miles).

Here's a look at our accommodations for the next week...

Living room.

Bedroom.

Bathroom.

Kitchen.

Big table for only two guests!

Patio.

We have a bit of a view.

And our own dog.

He lives here, but he's outside all the time so he comes to say hi whenever we are outside.

He's a very happy boy! We don't know what his name is yet.

We are headed down to see the sea. It's about a 3 km (1.8 mile) walk each way.

We are transitioning our social media from Facebook to MeWe. You can find us at https://mewe.com/p/travelwithkevinandruth

And don't forget to check out the deals at www.campingandrvgeardeals.com